Japan's New Middle Class: The Salary Man and His Family in a Tokyo Suburb (6 page)

[12] While not analyzed precisely in terms of the occupations mentioned here, the following data, given by the Ministry of Health and Welfare for 1960 is at least suggestive since there is a heavy overlap between "employee" and "salary man." Takashi Koyama in Robert J. Smith and Richard K. Beardsley, eds.,
Japanese Culture,
New York: The Viking Fund, 1962.

The number of children also tends to be smaller in the salary-man family. In 1952, the Institute of Population Problems in the Welfare Ministry noted a national average of 3.5 children per family. Physical laborers averaged 4.7, farmers 4.1, people in commerce and industry 3.2, and white-collar workers 2.9. Cited in Yoshiharu Scott Matsumoto,
Contemporary Japan: The Individual and the Group,
Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1960.

tance, and the daughter's marriage more dependent on her training and character than the size of the dowry, parents devote themselves to preparing their children properly for work and marriage rather than to accumulating a large inheritance.

Distinctions between the first son and the second son tend to lose significance in the salary man's family. No son succeeds to family headship in any meaningful economic way so that the postwar regulations requiring that inheritance be divided equally among the children poses no problem for the salaried man. Inheritance of family ritual objects generally goes to one son, but a more important problem which leads to a partial preservation of the stem family is the location of elderly parents after retirement. Retirement payments are minimal, and parents usually find it necessary to live with the children if they are to retain the same standard of living after retirement. In addition, elderly couples ordinarily have few opportunities to be integrated into a community except through their children. All children may share the financial responsibility, but the retired parents, and especially a widowed mother, ordinarily continue to live with only one of the children.

The salary man cannot hope to match the style of life of the successful independent businessman. But psychologically he derives a feeling of power by belonging to the large organization. The fact that in Japan a person is so closely identified with the group to which he belongs gives the salary man a backing which enables him in important respects to look down on the businessmen and independent professionals, who have more real power in the local community.

With this brief perspective on the significance of working in a large bureaucratic organization, it is now possible to take up in greater detail the various facets of the life of the salary man. We may begin by considering the process of becoming a salary man, the preparing for and taking of examinations, and the impact of this process on the family. We may then describe the relations between the family and the major subsystems of Japanese society, the internal family processes, and finally consider some implications of the present study for the problem of maintaining order in Japanese society.

No single event, with the possible exception of marriage, determines the course of a young man's life as much as entrance examinations, and nothing, including marriage, requires as many years of planning and hard work. Because all colleges and high schools, and many private junior high schools, grade schools, and even kindergartens use entrance examinations to select only a small proportion of the applicants, and because examinations are open to all,
^[1]
the competition is fierce. Passing examinations to a good school seems as difficult to the Mamachi resident as for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. There is virtually no limit to how much one can prepare for examinations. The average child studies so hard that Japanese educators speak of the tragedy of their school system which requires students to sacrifice their pleasures, spontaneity, and sparkle for examination success. These arduous preparations constitute a kind of
rite de passage
whereby a young man proves that he has the qualities of ability and endurance necessary for becoming a salary man. The Japanese commonly refer to entrance examinations as
shiken jigoku
which literally means "examination hell."

The Mamachi youth is willing to endure these tortures because if successful he will be able to join a large successful firm where he can remain for life.
^[2]
To be admitted to such a firm, one must

[1] This is in contrast to many developing countries where for reason of race, language, ethnic discrimination, or financial requirements, the opportunities are limited to certain groups in the population.

[2] Abegglan argues that the key differences between Japanese and American factories is the Japanese factory's life-long commitment to the employee. James G. Abegglan,
The Japanese Factory: Aspects of Its Social Organization,
Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1958.

Recent evidence indicates that there is in fact considerable mobility, even ofpeople working in large firms, but it has greatly declined since the war. Kenichi Tominaga, "Occupational Mobility in Japanese Society: Analysis of the Labor Market in Japan" (mimeographed, 1962). Also, Koji Taira, "Characteristics of Japanese Labor Markets,"
Economic Development and Cultural Change,
1962, X:150–168.

Even if there is mobility, however, it may be to a company affiliated with the original company or through arrangements made by people within this company.

Even new or expanding firms prefer young people. One Mamachi industrialist opening a new plant kept expanding for three years before the plant reached full size. The new employees were admitted annually, immediately following graduation from high school or junior high school. He felt, like most Japanese employers, that he would have a greater likelihood of getting competent employees this way than by recruiting older people from elsewhere.

The age of Japanese farmers at time of entering a master's service was historically important in determining whether they would be granted highly desired semi-independent status. Those who entered service at a younger age were more likely to be rewarded with such status. Cf. Thomas C. Smith,
The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan,
Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1959.

attend a good university, and to attend a good university one must pass the entrance examination. To pass the entrance examination for a good university one must have good training, and to acquire the good training one must pass the entrance examination to a good high school. In the final analysis, success is determined not by intelligence tests, nor by the school record, nor by the teacher's recommendations but by entrance examinations.

Although it seems a tragedy to the participants, there is a certain logic in how the examination system works. Because the firm commits itself to a young man for life and because business in contemporary Japan is highly competitive, the firm must be careful to select men of unusual promise and ability. The number of men a large firm takes in each year is so large and the number of personal connections of company officials so great that it would be impossible to use personal evaluations as the primary basis to select applicants. One need only imagine the problems of large numbers of company employees each urging the company to support his favorite candidate, to understand the convenience and value of a more universalistic basis of judgment. Because there is such wide agreement in Japanese society as to which universities are most desirable, firms consider the university attended as important or even more important than their own examinations for selecting salary men. Not only the university's relative standing, but even its style of life, has considerable stability over time, because of the practice of inbreeding. Nearly all professors at a major university have received their

training at the same institution, and it is almost unthinkable for a professor to move from one major university to another.
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Organizations add to this stability by selecting applicants according to the university's reputation. Young applicants know which universities the firms prefer and choose their university accordingly, thus perpetuating the emphasis on the university attended as a basis for selecting competent young men.

A large company ordinarily hires older workers only when absolutely necessary and even then gives more security and more rapid pay increases to younger employees. Here again, there is a self-fulfilling accuracy to the company's predictions. People who do change companies tend to be opportunistic and less devoted to the company's interests, and the company feels justified in hiring workers directly from college making work experience irrelevant as a criterion.

From the view of the outside observer entrance examinations involve an intensity of affect which cannot be explained only by the desire to obtain a good job. Although the search for security has rational components, as mentioned before, it has been heightened by the many upheavals in the lifetime of the average adult and by the difficulty which the contemporary urban parent had in finding a long-term livelihood when he was young. For the urban resident, a job in a large corporation is as close as one can come to the security that country relatives have by belonging to a household firmly attached to land and the local community. Just as obtaining land is thought to secure the future of a family even in the next generation, so does a job in a large corporation provide long-range security and insure that one's children can be given a proper position in life.

There are now opportunities in Japanese society for adventurous and talented young men, especially in new fields like electronics, advertising, entertainment, and foreign trade. New small companies in these fields can offer higher salaries than larger organizations, but

[3] They may, however, move from this major institution to smaller institutions, and then from there to better universities or back to this major university. It is unlikely, however, that they would ever move to a major university other than the one they attended.

most young men are unwilling to take this risk of less security; however, those who do not pass the entrance examinations to a good university may have no other choice.

But even if one wants to work in a smaller company, attending a good university makes it easier to get a good job and even to change jobs at a later time.
^[4]
Once a student has passed an entrance examination to a first-rate university, he has no worry about graduating because the university is committed to his success and would dismiss him only for extreme misbehavior or incompetence. Compared to American state universities, which dismiss a large proportion of first-year students, the number of students failed from Japanese universities is negligible. Moreover, students do not transfer from one university to another. Being admitted to a given university becomes, in effect, a basis of ascription which provides fairly clear limits to one's later mobility.

Although students in a good university may still be concerned about being accepted by the best possible organization, the range of differences in status between the corporations or government bureaus they will join is relatively narrow. The room for achievement within the company is also relatively minor compared to whether one attended an outstanding university and whether one was admitted to a large reputable organization. To a large extent advancement within the firm depends simply on the date of entry into the organization. All new members of a company are admitted on the same day each year, go through the same general training program, and are treated as equals in most matters, such as salary and position. Even when employees begin to get different functional assignments, seniority remains relatively more important than skill and ability in determining rank and salary. An employee's standing vis-à-vis outsiders is determined when he enters the firm, and is little affected by the minor differentiations of status within the firm.

Even if some students from a lesser university are admitted to a

[4] The importance of the university attended is clearly greater for a salary man than for independent professionals or independent businessmen. The success of the young man who takes over his father's practice or business is determined not by the school attended but the size of his father's enterprise and his own ability. However, if family prestige or tradition is tied with a given university, it may be important for prestige purposes to attend that university regardless of economic significance.

good company or government office, they still may be at a disadvantage compared to those who attended the better universities. While some say that cliques of graduates of a given high school or university are weaker than before the war, fellow alumni of the same university are known to show preferences for their fellow graduates. It is assumed that those who attended a certain university (and sometimes even a certain department within a university) will feel mutual loyalty and share similar attitudes, making it possible for them to work together harmoniously despite differences of opinion and temperament. Especially in large government bureaus, acceptance in informal circles and even rate of advancement may be affected by the university one attended.